Saturday, July 29, 2006

I am not devoted to taking pictures. I should have taken "before" and "after" pictures of the "Romper Room" (now my office). I'll get the "after" pictures up soon.

[Don't roll your eyes. I post photos. Sometimes.]

With the assistance of Space Bags and modular storage, the room that looked like a bomb had exploded (a yarn bomb, nonetheless) is now a functional office/ guest room.

I'll have to post the "after" pictures and explain the system. I'm amazed at how well my idea turned out. (I often have seemingly brilliant ideas about organization that have turned out… less successful.)

The thing I am most excited about is the fan I set up. Everything else is cool, but this is brilliant. My office has an air flow issue. Now, when you turn on the light to enter, the fan switches on. Magic!

This probably explains my astronomically low Finished Object count. I feel like I have accomplished something good, but counter-productive to the Yarn Diet objectives.

[Note to readers: Everything except knitting is counter-productive to the Yarn Diet objectives. Except for playing with the dogs.]

Friday, July 28, 2006

Most families pass on "stuff", like family silver to their kids. Or mental illness. Whatever.

My mother jokes that I am going to inherit/have inherited her Badonkadonk [backside], which I have, to a certain extent. She also jokes that I will inherit her Schnaz (not to be confused with Schnauzer).

[However, if we were going to do a nose comparison, using Schnauzers to represent size mine would be this [Miniature Schnauzer]:

Mom's would be this [Giant Schnauzer]:

And for a side-by-side comparison [not to scale, unfortunately]: Mine: Mom's:

Just so we're clear.]

I have also inherited my mother's inability to drink from an adult cup/glass/mug, requiring me to drink from a sippy cup. This inability (or what I like to refer to as my "drinking problem" a la Airplane) always flares up on important days.

Example 1:

Jasmin is running a meeting. Readers of my blog all know I am a complete fraud and do not deserve the tremendous amount of praise and respect I get at work, where they find me exceeding expectations.

[Seriously. I look at myself and worry every day that they will realize that I'm faking it and will have the contents of my office waiting in a bankers box the same day that I find that my badge no longer works.]

Showing their complete confidence in me, they arrange a meeting, where I am in charge of teaching everyone how to use some software, where they have granted me the title of "Super-User".

Ten minutes before this meeting, I manage to pour hot chocolate (brown) down my shirt (pale pink). It now looks like my boob has leaked hot chocolate. Great.

Solution: wear a sweater, it's air conditioned and I am only a little too warm.

Example 2: [Thursday]

I am wearing a white raglan tank top (my "Astonishing" shirt, from Little Women) to wear to the department picnic.

An hour before it starts, I notice the dark brown dribble (same place as last time) on my very WHITE tank.. I try cleaning it off with soap and cold water. Now I have a SEE-THROUGH stained tank. I put on my jackety-thing until it dries.

Seriously. This is the legacy of the ages I am passing on to the future generations.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

So, last week was a lousy week for me. The straw that broke this particular camel-jockey's back was when my swift would no longer co-operate with me.

The initial issue that my swift had was that the screw was stripped, and so was the little female part of the screwing mechanism. (Ha ha, I said "screwing mechanism".) Andrew is very handy with things like, fixing the guest bathroom fan, or the pipe that burst behind the dishwasher during Stitches West. But he is not a woodworker.

[His temporary fix involved a rubber band providing the resistant that the screw mechanism should be doing. It sort of works, but is awful for set-up and ease of use.]

Despite his lack of woodworking skills, Andrew is still a more-than adequate spouse. He has other skills. You should see him with a bow staff.

The not- okay part about this whole thing is that the swift is only 5 or 6 years old. It's the Ashford swift- unfinished, the larger size- and although their spinning wheels come with replacement parts, since the female part of the mechanism is stripped as well, I am functionally HOSED as far as this swift is concerned. There is no way to remove the damaged part and replace it. So the swift * looks * okay, but doesn't really work.

So, a replacement was ordered on Friday, after I nearly broke down in tears over the whole mess. Photos and a story will be posted upon receipt.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

We went to Knitting Arts on Saturday, and I saw the Regia Silk. It feels HEAVENLY. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to cough up the cash for it. It was $11/ 50g ball there, where everywhere else I've found it for about $15/100g ball.

This wasn't a real temptation, but the fact that I didn't order it online when I got home shows TREMENDOUS restraint.

Monday, July 17, 2006

So, we were cleaning up the "Romper Room" (formerly Grace's room, then renamed the "Romper Room", and now, my home office), and I decided that I am going on a yarn crash diet. No more buying yarn until I have made a significant enough dent in my stash where I stop being the bad example to everyone's spouses.

It wears on me, hearing people say, "My stash isn't as bad as Jasmin's. You should see hers." And rightly you should, in it's fiber-licious, colorful glory.

Rarely have I heard myself being used as a positive example (i.e. "Look at how many projects Jasmin finishes!"), and I would like to be able to accomplish projects without the stigma of the "Yeah, you finished one, but you've got yarn for 7 million other projects, so it counts less."

I also have loads of yarn that I love. I open the containers and marvel at my good taste, and plan projects for all this yarn. This yarn represents what could be, rather than what is. In the cleaning, I did not see ONE skein of yarn where I stopped and thought, "This is ghastly. What on EARTH was I thinking when I bought this?"

There's really no end date, just when I've lessened my stash enough to feel like I've really accomplished something.

THE RULES

1- Yarn can be purchased without violating the diet if it is to complete a project.

2- Gadgets, tools, books, and magazines are not included in this diet.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

First, I would like to state that I am not a sissy. That having been said, I will continue.

We're doing some stuff at work, stuff that requires much clicking-and-dragging. So, by the end of business (read: "not when I left work- which was after 7") my Mousing Muscle hurt something FIERCE.

It turns out, somehow, by some amazing lack of forethought, I should have stretched the Mousing Muscle. Maybe warmed it up a little. You laypeople would think that typing and "light" mousing all day would be sufficient. Oh, but you would be wrong, as I was.

So now, I have one freakishly buff finger. It's like one of my fingers is on steroids, like one of those body builders. Well, not quite. But we're getting there.

I would do finger push-ups with it, but I'm concerned that this will only make it more freakish in it's muscle-y nature. Sounds like my Mousing Muscle needs to take a few rest days. Except that I am a very slow mouser with all of my other fingers on the same hand (I tried), and my left hand is useless for all things but carrying and knitting.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Andrew and I were watching CSI Miami, I'm relaxing on the couch, when the doorbell rings. Since we weren't expecting anyone, I got a little annoyed, paused CSI, wrangled the dogs behind the gate, and went to see who was trying to sell us what.

I'm going to segue briefly; within the first month of owning our home, a 20-something real estate agent showed up on my doorstep at noon asking if we were interested in selling our house. I thanked him for asking, and let him know that we had bought a month prior. He asked how much we paid. I told him that was a matter of public record and he was free to look it up if he so chose.

Other solicitations: Three different unsavory looking [male] magazine subscription sales guys. Niki made his scary face, which helped me get rid of them. Oh, and they came by around noon, and I happened to be home for lunch. But seriously, how many people are home around noon or one? We've also had the evil neighbor children came begging for donations for softball.

So, anyway, Andrew answers the door, and it's a woman. He steps outside to keep Niki from going nuts, walks back in the house and asks me if I'd like to take a book survey.

"A book survey? Sure!" I say, thinking that this is pretty cool.

Now, I would like to say that I assumed that she was a student conducting a poll for research. I step outside and I see a copy of "Dianetics" surreptitiously tucked under her clipboard.

Nooooooooooooo!!! screams a voice inside my head. However, because my mother raised me better than to run back in the house and slam the door in her face, I smile and try to end this little encounter quickly.

She begins by asking me what kinds of books I read. I answer that I'm an eclectic bibliophile. She asks if I ever get stressed. I tell her that I have a couple of outlets for stress management, thanks for asking. She asks if I ever read self-help books.

All of her questions are aimed to show her that I have low self-esteem. One after another. I start to fidget at look back at the door pointedly.

"I'm sorry," she half-apologizes, "Do you have somewhere you need to be?"

"I have dinner on the stove," I say, "I need to get back to it. Have a nice evening."

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